Hail Heroes!

I believe a fundamental truth of this universe is that nothing actually begins or ends. Everything is linked in an unbroken chain of events and transformations. The things that feel like beginnings or endings are often exciting, uncomfortable, painful, and promising. Our lives and our projects all go through these cycles, but we do not always see how connected everything and everyone is.

This is why it’s difficult to call this the beginning of a new project, or new LARP.

It is, and it isn’t.

It’s a new chapter. It’s also grounded in my favorite parts of the Gothic LARP world, as well as other enjoyable LARPs, games, books, movies, and music. This LARP was formed by steps and ideas and memories of things that have come before.

I love Gothic as a setting and a game. I’ve always loved it. And I am fortunate to be working with a group of people who also love the world of Gothic and share a vision of another Age and version of the game. Roughly a little over a year ago, Sean Yeager and I started discussing and negotiating how I could create a new Gothic game without it being a franchise, and the answer was that I could tap into the rich history and timeline of the world to create something new but with familiar elements.

Over the past year, dozens of people have come on board and assisted me. It would be completely unfair and incorrect to call this “my project” – its the combined efforts of my development team and a large number of volunteers who have offered everything from writing to proofreading to art and their very precious time. It has always been the combined efforts of countless people (players, staff, and support staff) that have made the Gothic world grow into a rich setting and colorful tapestry of stories and experiences. So it should be no surprise that creating this larp experience has continued that tradition from the very start.

I am so proud of all of the work that my team and my community have done, and I am beyond impressed by their talent and creativity. Jessica, Megan, Wolf, Nicole, Virginia, Jason, Jameson, Becca, and Dexter have been the best team anyone could hope for.   

Expect that over the rest of 2019 we will be hard at work continuing to develop and write. We will be having fundraising events (which we hope folks will be interested in) where we will showcase the playable cultures we’ve developed, serve tasty food and drink, and socialize. We hope you will ask questions. We hope you will not mind if the answer initially is, “We don’t know yet.” There’s a lot we do know, but we also are still very much a project in progress.

Overall, I’m just so very excited to finally be able to unveil to you this creation that so much of my time, energy, and attention has gone into, and will continue to pour into for the foreseeable future.

My hope is that you also are excited, or at least curious, to come explore the next link in the chain that is Gothic: Age of Ashes.

Love,

Chantelle